


Drunk in Love

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon - Manga, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Takes place while they're on the run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7196819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stein looked over her face, over the warm flush that had crept down her neck and against her collarbones, a rosy, happy glow, and he wondered why he couldn’t have just been a man like Spirit, who wouldn’t think but would just do.</i>
</p><p>  <i>But he couldn’t. Marie was the only…</i></p><p>  <i>She was the only one he’d want to do what she was implying with, the only one he really remembered wanting to be with in every possible way. And he wouldn't do that when she'd polished off an entire bottle of wine.</i></p><p>Or; Marie and Stein and far too much sexual tension between them after clearing Stein's name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drunk in Love

Marie giggled, practically swaying on her feet. “ _Stein_ ,” she said, the vowels stretching out in her mouth. “I want a _baby_.”

Stein made an amused sound somewhere in the back of his throat as he pulled the cigarette he’d been smoking from his lips. The window was cracked open enough so that Marie was less likely to inhale any smoke, and he tapped the ashes out the window as he turned to her. “Is that so?” he asked, though the question was _entirely_ rhetorical.

After all, he was well aware of the fact that she’d ordered practically everything on the room service menu at the hotel, including two bottles of wine, as well as a bottle of rather expensive champagne, all on Death’s dime. 

He could see that she’d abandoned the glass and simply started to drink from the bottle, which was nearly empty. His lips quirked up despite himself. She’d been on edge the entire time they were on the run, and who could blame her? At least now, she got to relax. Besides, she was entertaining when she was drunk. Just a few minutes ago, she’d danced along to some ridiculous song on the radio, insisting he dance with her and they ended up waltzing and stumbling and tangoing and eventually just laughing all over the suite they’d booked for the night.

When was the last time either of them got to unwind?

Stein crushed the cigarette in his hand, dropping it outside before he completely exhaled all the smoke and reached for the near-empty bottle of wine Marie had yet to relinquish all evening.

He wouldn’t begrudge her that. He just assumed she’d hit her limit and it would be prudent to make sure her hangover come morning wasn’t any worse than it would already be. After finding Justin and clearing Stein’s name, they finally decided to indulge in the luxury of a hotel room on their way back to Death City, and the trip would be a relatively long one, though certainly lighter than leaving the city in the first place.

All things considered, it was their right to enjoy a night free of responsibility. The tape with Justin’s confession on it lay safe inside of a drawer, proof that Stein was, well, not innocent, but at least not a murderer.

And Marie’d had enough celebratory wine to make most men _his_ size waver, let alone a petite, four-foot-eight-inch tall woman.

 

Roughing it wasn’t uncommon for them, they were trained soldiers. Roughing it while on the run from God, well, that was a tad trickier. But now they didn’t have to worry about it, and all he really had to concern himself with for the night was Marie’s demands of a family.

“Frankeeeeeeeen. I want a baaaaaaaby.”

“I know, Marie,” he replied, swirling the wine she’d still left in the bottle around for a moment before he threw caution to the wind and took a swill. He was fairly certain that there was some backwash in there, but he didn’t much care. If it was Marie, he couldn’t find himself feeling anything truly negative about her. Besides, wine rarely, if ever, affected him, and he quickly polished off the bottle. There was still powdered sugar around the opening, a gift from the Belgian waffles Marie’d eaten on the bed, crumbs undoubtedly left on the sheets, sweetening the drink further.

It wasn’t often that Lord Death fucked up so spectacularly, accusing one of his own of a crime and demanding an arrest. Stein was tempted to order from room service himself and present the bill to God as a means of retribution.

“Steeeeeeein,” Marie whined, bringing his attention back to her, back to the fact that her hand was reaching out for the bottle he was emptying, and Stein finally stopped drinking, a single dribble of red sliding from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. She giggled at the state he was in, his sleeves rolled up, shirt undone at the collar a few buttons more than before, his hair still dripping from the warmth of the shower and his skin pink and beading with water.

“Hmmm?” he replied, setting the bottle just out of her reach and to the side, and she lunged for it, fingertips barely missing as she pressed herself against his chest.

“You took my bottle,” she said, the words broken up with her laughter.

“Ah, but it’s a celebration, yes?” he asked her, unable to stop the fondness from showing on his face as she leaned back, tilting her head. With her heals gone, and not even the small lift her sandals had bestowed upon her, she was even more miniscule than before, having to tilt her head up to look at him. Her hair, darkened the color of a sunset by the shower she’d taken earlier, flicked against his shirt as she wobbled.

“Oooooh,” she replied, as though suddenly understanding once more. “Yeah! We’re celebrating.”

He hummed in reply, releasing his hold on the bottle to instead wrap around her waist, heralding her to the bed. She so rarely got drunk that it was no wonder she was so affected. Besides which, being so small certainly put a cap on how much she could swallow down, and she’d already had half the bottle of champagne and a full bottle of wine. He was surprised she was still standing.

For a moment, she went along with his trajectory without any comment, her feet effortlessly moving with him before she looked over her shoulder to where he was leading her and she grinned. He hadn’t noticed, too focused on getting her to the massive, king sized bed they’d decided on.

It was hard to have picky preferences about sleeping on one mattress together when they’d just spent weeks on weeks twined together on sleeping bags that were too thin to combat the freeze of the desert at night. Spooning for warmth was a survival technique. That was all.

As he gently moved to ease her onto the bed, intent on getting her to sleep off her drunken mood and whip up a quick hangover cure for her before he’d retire, too, she grasped hold of his upper arms and moved his feet out from under him, leaving him to tumble with her.

The surprise was less geared toward her and more toward the shiver of pleasure that ran up his spine when she did so, when he’d splayed his fingers out to catch himself on both palms, hands on either side of her head, his body pressing over hers, trapping her between the softness of the mattress and him.

He swallowed.

“Marie-“

“I want a baby, Frank,” she said, again, though now there was all too much suggestion in her voice. “Could we celebrate like that?”

He was shaking his head before he could even think about it and he tried to adjust himself off of her, but her leg ran up the outside of his calf, her hair in her face, her expression giddy and pleased.

“Marie, you’re drunk,” he informed, his voice flattening as the rosy glow of the evening dampened slightly.

“Mmmmm, only a little!” she assured, giggling as she stretched beneath him, arching up and going to run a hand through his hair before she ran her fingers down the side of his cheek, feeling his stubble. “I want a baby, though,” Marie repeated, and he was tempted to tell her that he knew, had always known, that everyone knew she wanted a child. “Make a baby with me?”

It was less a question than an invitation, and something inside of him both sunk and lifted, pulled away from her and surged forward. Marie blinked up at him, her eyepatch long removed and the scarwork of her lid exposed, her lips parted slightly as she smiled at him.

He didn’t know when he’d started leaning into her hand, still stroking over his cheek and jaw, but he had. “Not when you’re drunk, Marie.”

That was a good answer. Neutral. It wasn’t “You don’t really want me, though, do you?” or “Why? So you can pretend?” or anything else that was scathing and burning his tongue. Besides, the thought of taking advantage of her, for it _would_ be taking advantage, no matter how much she wanted him at that moment, churned his stomach. Hurting Marie, scaring her, upsetting her; it made him feel ill. Because she wasn’t asking him to have sex with her while she was in her right mind, and he would never, never in his life, want her to wake up to him with surprise or regret.

“But I’m only a little drunk!” she assured, pouting and blinking her beautiful golden eye at him. He shook his head once more, trying to move them, again, but Marie held her ground as best she could.

“You’re still drunk, Marie,” he told her, voice low and patient and almost sad.

“So…when I’m not drunk?” she asked, and that was too dangerous, the way she was looking at him, the way the sharpness entered her eye. The wine might have been wearing down on her, slightly, or the waffles were soaking up some of the alcohol in her system, or whatever else could have been happening, because she suddenly seemed all too sober.

Stein looked over her face, over the warm flush that had crept down her neck and against her collarbones, a rosy, happy glow, and he wondered why he couldn’t have just been a man like Spirit, who wouldn’t think but would just do.

But he couldn’t. Marie was the only…

She was the only one he’d want to do what she was implying with, the only one he really remembered wanting to be with in every possible way.

“I don’t want to be your rebound, Marie,” he told her, all too honest, all too quiet, and he wished he’d had more wine, wished the fizzy happiness of alcohol could come over him, instead of that hollow ache in his stomach.

Marie frowned, still stroking his cheek, still looking up at him. “Y’r not my rebound, silly,” she said, and though the words slurred slightly, the way her soul was exposed and opened to him showed him how honest she was.

“…But…Joe,” he said, and the name itself seemed to dampen Marie’s spirits. Lord knew it was hard enough for him to spit out, too.

“-Is gone,” Marie finished for him, and the seriousness of her voice jolted him from toes to crown. “And we-we’ll find Justin again and kill him for that.”

“You loved him,” Stein said, simply, and the close proximity of their souls and bodies was getting to him. He was curious. He was. . .concerned.

But Marie only sighed, turning her hand around so she could completely cup his cheek, stroking the warm pad of her thumb over his cheekbone, and he was almost ashamed of how he leaned into her hold. “Once,” she answered, her palm warm, her answer frank.

“But the date?”

“Didn’t happen.”

“And if it did?” he asked, and that was the most dangerous of all. Because she was there, with him, in that moment, but that was because the Mole had been murdered. And Stein wasn’t selfless enough not to feel the slightest relief in that. Which was horrible and awful and told him that he didn’t deserve Marie, her warmth or her tenderness, her affection which had been blooming between them so steadily.

And then Joe showed up. And then

And then.

Marie seemed to think for a moment, her thumb still moving, still soothing, and he couldn’t stop looking at her, seeing her sprawled out under him and so warm.

“I think,” she started, almost making him jump were it not for how soft her voice was, “I think we would have had a good time. And I’d-I’d drink wine. And I’d have crème brulee and he’d pay the bill and I’d…I’d remember that he broke up with…with me.”

“It was stupid of him. He regretted it.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d have stayed with him.”

“No.”

His eyebrows tipped up at that, the surprise evident in his very soul. “No?”

“He was…familiar. I was scared…of being alone. But. . .I didn’t…I didn’t love him…when he asked me on that date.”

The honesty of it all was too raw. Too delicate. What had he done? Broken things open, as usual, and didn’t know how to put them back together again.

“You aren’t alone,” Stein told her, and he didn’t realize that he’d been leaning toward her until he could smell the wine on her mouth and he moved away, again.

It was wrong. Still wrong. Even if she didn’t love the Mole, hadn’t loved him since he’d broken up with her years ago, Stein was still wrong for her. He was all wrong. He wasn’t wholesome, he wasn’t light and kindness. He may not have killed Joe, (for how could he ever when it would mean hurting Marie as a result and hurting Marie was unthinkable? the most unforgivable sin), but he still had blood on his hands.

At the very least, none of it was hers. And he wouldn’t put any of it on his hands that night, either, when she was still drunk, drunk drunk drunk, and couldn’t consent. And even if she could, and she was sober and she wanted him, he didn’t deserve her. Not when he was thinking of how badly he wanted her. Not when he was so stupidly happy that she cared about him. Not when he’d prodded and pried at her to reveal such intimate information.

But Marie only hummed, a slow, lazy smile spreading over her face as her free hand came to the back of his neck and she leaned forward, tipping her chin up. The kiss she landed on him, sloppy, on the corner of his mouth, was so warm and affectionate he almost felt something fizz up in him.

“I know I’m not alone, silly,” she said, her eye drooping as she looked at him, settling back on the mattress, and he could make out the signs of her sleepiness, the drowsy effects of the wine, of the warmth, of the conversation. “I have you.”

And she did. She had her hold on him in too many ways. In dangerous ways. The truth was that he wasn’t a murderer but he would still kill for her. That he would open his chest and hand her his heart if she so asked. That he wanted her and wanted to be with her and the feelings yawned in him and threatened to swallow him whole, leaving her as the only buoy, the only glowing beacon to keep him grounded. She made him spiral out of his skin and stay together all at the same time. She was the scar and the seamwork and the wound all at once.

She was

She was falling asleep. It was undeniable, with the way he could read her, at least.

And he was too assured, too happy by her little confessions, by her little affections, by her pleased smile.

Perhaps there was more than his cleared name to celebrate, after all.

“Steeeeeeeein,” she stretched out, “Frankeeeen.”

She was the only one who used his first name. Maybe she was more aware than anyone else that the only person he’d give his last name to was her.

“Yes, Marie?” he asked, and he’d finally allowed one of his own hands to tenderly touch her cheek, inspiring another happy giggle from her as she nuzzled against his palm, setting her lips onto his fingers and kissing them.

“So…when I’m not…drunk?” she asked again, and he looked over her face, her open honesty, her wanting soul, and he turned his face in her loose hold so he could mimic her actions, kissing her palm.

“Only if you want me to, Marie.”

She grinned, her teeth glinting in the dim light. “Of course I want you, too,” she replied, yawning slightly as he finally managed to adjust them enough that she was more comfortably sprawled on the bed. She looked up at him with her eye half lidded, fluttering. And as she sighed, not in exasperation or in sorrow or in negativity, but, instead, in unmistakable bliss and breathed out, “I love you,” he finally dipped down enough to kiss her forehead.


End file.
